Television Of The Weak: Dismantled By Time

This week it's all about Dollhouse (The Unaired Episode!), Leverage, Hung, Project Runway & Homicide: Life On The Street. Martin Brown, Sean Witzke, True Blood & The Prisoner return next week.

Dollhouse - "Epitaph One" by Matthew J. Brady

Man, Fox made a big mistake in not airing this episode, if only so that we can see Eliza Dushku get outacted even by a little girl. Classic! I hope everybody on the show will get a chance to play her characters and show how it's supposed to be done. But while that might be the highlight of the episode for Dushku-haters like me, there's plenty more to like here, with a flash-forward to 2019 in which LA, and presumably the rest of the world, has fallen into a post-apocalyptic state after Dollhouse technology, which has developed to the point at which it can wipe minds and transmit personalities wirelessly, and has thus turned most of the population into zombies (or some approximation thereof). A band of survivors, led by Mary Lynn Rajskub-lookalike and "Dr. Horrible" co-star Felicia Day, stumble upon the deserted Dollhouse while trying to escape the city through underground tunnels, and they end up powering everything up and discovering secrets about what happened in the interim since the last episode. A series of flashbacks (or flash-forwards, from 2009's perspective) give some tantalizing hints about plots to come, including Echo managing to gain control over implanted personalities, the higher-ups planning to "sell" actives' bodies to the super-rich as a means of attaining immortality, Boyd fighting injuries of some sort to strike out on his own (maybe becoming an anti-Dollhouse militant?), Dominic waking up just in time for the end of the world, the various Actives boarding themselves inside after the world has gone to shit, Topher going even more crazy, and other plots involving anti-imprint cures and fights for safety.

But as fascinating as all that is (and it certainly is, promising more exploration of sci-fi ideas and their possible results), the main plot, which sees the survivors figuring out what has happened and fighting off a threat from within their ranks, is compelling on its own. It's a surprisingly rich and deep episode, full of nice moments and ominous portent. It's the "Days of Future Past" of Dollhouse continuity; hopefully we won't get years and years of plots about people trying to avoid the horrible future while inadvertently causing it, but I suspect it won't be long before we see some of these prophecies come to fruition. The second season is coming up soon, and if all goes well, shit will soon be hitting the fan. Everybody better duck.

Leverage - "The Top Hat Job" by David Brothers

I'm convinced that the best episodes of Leverage have a lot of comedy. This one amps that up, with Sophie and Nate playing a background role to the interactions between Parker, Hardison, and Elliott.

Parker and Hardison continue to prove that the best nation is miscegenation, though they are still at the vague flirting stage. They get to pretend to be on a date, which ends up pretty wonderful with Parker's complete lack of social skills and Hardison's (intentional) over-acting, and trade quality banter. Elliott is Captain Zing this week, with a couple of quality burns on Hardison, punctuated with "C'mon, man, you had to have seen that one coming." It's the interplay that friends have, that borderline acidic slash genuinely joking thing that people who truly get along do.

The heist this time around is a magic show, with Nate playing another bumbling, kinda forgetful sort of guy. There's the last minute twist, where the team gets caught but whoops not really, as usual, but seriously-- you should be watching this show for the interplay between the characters.

The heists are almost entirely beside the point for me, I think. I like that they're a gang of thieves, and the heists are pretty good, but pretty formulaic. The fun part is in the dialogue and interactions. When it's good, it's very good.

Hung, "Thith Ith a Prothetic Or You Cum Just Right" by Nina Stone

What if the sex Industry was driven by the kind of women it catered to?

To me, that's what Hung is about. You might think it's a little dramedy about Ray - but I see an exploration of the culture of women. Sure, women like a well-hung guy - but that's not what really gets the job done. If Ray is to be successful as a Happiness Consultant for women, he can't just go in and do the deed and be done with it. He has to face, deal with and overcome the very same issues that get in his way in his own real life - women. And women are different than men. That's Ray's journey.

I'm speaking volumes here, dropping science and all that. (I think?) Guys, at some point in your adult life I'm sure you have had (or your going to have) that critical moment when you learn that porn is not a true depiction of sex. I mean, it may be a true depiction of something that turns men on and how men operate. But the women? Uh-uh. See, it takes more than 6.4 seconds to get a woman turned on. Removing your pants does not a seduction make. Pornography seems to be all for men - what turns them on, gets them off. And women, in porn, are seen an portrayed through a very male lens.

This is putting our dear young lads at a terrible disadvantage. It's setting them up for failure in bed. The truth has to be faced. (Or at least, god knows it should be.) In the quest for ultimate sexual pleasure and satisfaction you will come to learn that for women, it's all about the mind. I'm not saying you have to be a genius or that we have to play chess - lord knows plenty of us aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. But it is all about the psychology of pleasure. (And yes, there's alternates, and sure, some girls just want to Get Fucked, but it's rarely in the same way that a guy just wants to Get Off.)

Through Tanya, his ex-wife, Gemma and the various women he encounters Ray is having to navigate the minds of women and learn how to give them what they want and need, so that he can get what he needs - be it money, sexual satisfaction, or custody of his children.

In this latest episode we witness and learn that Gemma paid $2,000 for the opportunity to reject someone who cared about her in the same manner as has been done to her time and again. With no rhyme, reason or explanation. It's tweaked and weird and we feel some pity for Ray, but for some reason, smile to ourselves at Gemma's catharsis. And the fact that she paid to do it makes it seem, well...better than just doing it to be mean. Just as men pay for the exploitation of women (naked, spread-eagle centerfolds, etc.). Gemma paid for the emotional exploitation of Ray. It's her emotional pornography. Ray is being used up and then dropped off. It's no more sadistic than the way a man might use a woman as a receptacle--both are emotionally damaging, both hurt. 

The way I see it, Hung is all about the issue of power. There's a constant struggle for power in relationships with one person seeming clearly "powerful" and the other seeming "powerless" in their presence. Most of the time, it's linked to the psychology of status. In Anne Heche's relationship with her now husband, as well as with her children, she seems to think that she is and/or acts like she's powerless - and he's got the power of money. But in her relationship with Ray, she's the powerful one, wielding her power of choice. You can see this dynamic between Tanya and Lenore, Tanya and Ray, Tanya and her mother, Ray and Gemma, Ray and the principal, Ray and his neighbor, etc., etc., etc. Just another interesting theme that is being explored, over and over again, because it's a classic struggle, it's a normal struggle--no big dick needed, no whores allowed, we, us, we're doing this everyday.

I guess it boils down to this: where do we go from here? I'm not entirely sure. Will Gemma come back? Will she realize that it's not all that satisfying to hurt someone? I kind of hope not. I like the way that ended. But some character, preferably Ray, needs to have some movement or growth soon. As interesting as exploring some of these themes is to me, It feels like the show is beginning to tread water and if it doesn't move soon, it's going to drown.

Project Runway - "Welcome To Los Angeles" by Tucker Stone

I'll be handling this season of Project Runway, but until I'm off the road and back at the Factual's Brooklyn Offices--hopefully next week--things will have the necessity of the slapdash. (Which is, yes, what happened to this week's Prisoner episode.)

So, we're in Los Angeles and on the Lifetime network: what's that mean for the show? Not much, apparently--hell, they're still running two to three commercials for Top Chef, all of which snarkily point out that the show is "Only On Bravo"--but the move to Lifetime was enough to ditch the pathetic old Bluefly accessories wall--it's been replaced with a Macy's one. (Poor Bluefly, you boring website I never looked at. Hardly knew ye! Hardly cared) Beyond that, not much has changed. Heidi Klum still radiates as she says nothing of consequence, Tim Gunn still turns on the queen whenever somebody cries--that "you can DO it, I believe in YOOU-AU" was fucking vintage--and Michael Kors remains a bitchy fucking prick. Snazzy! Oh, the move to Los Angeles allowed for a particularly busted looking Lindsay Lohan to show up as guest judge--for all the complaints celebrities have about gossip mongers and tabloids, wouldn't it benefit somebody like Lohan to, I don't know, not show up on a popular reality show looking like she's been binging on bathtub crank for a couple of weeks? I've seen classier looking scat porn.

The contestants are, as they always are at this point, many & boring. The editors choose to focus on the most obnoxious of the crew, a "recovered" meth addict named Johnny who has spent the better part of the last few years messing around with two things: lots of drugs and lots of audition tapes for various seasons of Project Runway. If one we're taking bets on whether or not Johnny's meth addiction stems directly from his obsession with becoming a contestant on Project Runway, as in A) he got addicted to meth to deal with the constant disappointment of not being selected or B) he got addicted to meth because he thought a drug addiction might be the one missing component that the show's producers were looking for when they repeatedly turned them down...man, I'd bet the farm. Kid's a mental patient waiting to re-happen. See ya on Celebrity Rehab, Johnny!

In the end, the show played out like all the early ones do: I find myself hating most of the contestants, confused as to why the judges like one ugly dress over another ugly dress, and then I get a little jealous when somebody goes home after getting to kiss Heidi Klum. (After watching multiple seasons of this show with the wife, I no longer have to hide or lie about the fact that I sort of want to lick Heidi Klum's face, Murder By Numbers style.) For some reason, I was sure that Heidi was going to say something new, like a sweetly delivered "you have no future, weak boy-girl, you must leave", but no luck. Eventually, this will hopefully boil down to a competition I'm excited about. Until then, I'll point out that I believe that 49 is the exact age when one should give up on the dream of becoming a professional clothing designer. 48 year olds can have dreams, even if they're stupid and impossible. But 49? 49 sticks in my craw. 

Homicide: Life On The Street - "A Shot In The Dark", "Three Men and Adena" & "A Dog and Pony Show" by Tucker Stone

Let's be open and honest about something: "A Shot In The Dark" is a decent episode of television, made stronger by the presence of skillful actors. "A Dog and Pony Show" is the worst episode of this show so far, and while normally you're supposed to follow that remark with a variation on the phrase "but bad _____ is still better than great My Two Dads", that isn't the case. "Dog and Pony" is lousy. It's lousy writing coupled with lousy pacing, and if it wasn't for the Andre Braugher's offhand mention that Irish Setters have a brain "the size of a kidney bean", the episode would be a complete failure. Even with that line, it's still only about 10% worth one's time, and I watch Project Runway on purpose, so you know I've got fucking time.

"Three Men and Adena"? That's something else entirely. Better than anything that's come before it, drastically unusual from any sort of television before--an artfully shot, masterfully performed and flawlessly edited hour, all in service to a script that is such a masterpiece that it remains a common occurrence for actual police officers to request a copy. At its most basic description, "Three Men" sounds--and for the most part, is--a one act play, where Andre Braugher, Kyle Secor and Moses Gunn sit in a room, systematically going at one another with the type of ferociousness that one never sees on television. There's three minute monologues, rapid-fire dialog delivered in tandem, all of it working towards a conclusion that, at no point in the episode, seems obvious or predictable. It's deliriously structured, with purposeful "mistakes" in continuity, as Kyle Secor changes position--he's on the left, he's on the right, he's on the left--while Andre Braugher behaves as a teleporting wraith, cooing and beckoning, stroking Gunn's face before disappearing, only to return with a petulant rage, spittle forming around the corners of his mouth as he roars out his charges. And at the heart of it all, Moses--a tired old man, biding his time, answering and arguing, begging for rest--all of which build and cycle towards the moment, "that" moment, when, eyes slit in wearied, studied hate, he opens his mouth: the roof caves in. All of the tactics, all of that studied anger, Braugher's blinding certainty, Secor's collapsing faith, all of them fail.

Or do they?

In real life, the murdered little girl's killer was never found. The evidence presented in this episode--soot on her clothes--may have meant she had been in an old fishseller's barn, it may have put her anywhere. He--the Fishman that Homicide turns into "Arabber"--had a record for statutory rape, and was the prime suspect for the crime. If it was him, he got away, a natural causes death. Kyle Secor's character had asked him, before the case file was closed, to write down whether or not he had killed, raped, and torn apart the little girl. Asked him to hide it somewhere, so that at least the family--and the police--could move on. He didn't. In real life, as in this fictional one, no answer was ever found. 

At the end of "Adena", all three men have been effectively destroyed, a part of them broken in a way that makes it hard to imagine that they'll be able to repair. But that's it, the final line: no matter what happened in that room, no matter what was said or done--they all go home. The only life that truly mattered, the one that brought these men together? It's long gone. No easy answers, no pat explanations, no morals. They can offer one thing, and one thing only.

Forward momentum.

-Matthew J. Brady, David Brothers, Tucker & Nina Stone, 2009

Comments

[seth hurley]

Damn, Homicide had a lot of good episodes, but Adena and the Arabber as a throughline for that entire show will never be beat.

[seth hurley]

We used to hit Canton Island for Project Runway, sit at the penny-covered bar drinking zombies and eating dumplings with the kitchen crew after the dining room closed.

Hot Daughter usually was at the bar, straight out of some GI's fantasy, but Cold Daughter made the strongest drinks. She wasn't cold, pretty nice actually, but Hot Daughter could make Forest Whitaker's eyes go straight.

Since the last season, the place sold & got turned into a goddamn sports bar and we are as homeless as fucking Epperson.

[Marty]

Heeeeeey, where's all the "Marty is wrong about Hung" stuff I was promised? There's nothing that I can argue with in there!

[Sharif]

How does Felicia Day look anything like Mary Lynn Rajskub? Her face has no resemblance to a potato.

[Matthew J. Brady]

Is anybody else with me on the resemblance? Maybe it's the voice; she sounds like her too, I think.

[Sharif]

How can you tell? Potato Face is a mumbler.

[Zebtron A. Rama]

Epitaph One was WICKED.